


What This Is To You

by storyranger



Series: The Knight and Shining Artist Chronicles [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canadian First Aid, F/M, Miscommunication, Profanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyranger/pseuds/storyranger
Summary: "She knew she shouldn’t have picked a friend. Especially not her best friend. She should have just picked a lax boy and hate-fucked him like a sane human being." A story of how Larissa Duan finally used her words.





	1. Accepted

**Author's Note:**

> Rated 13+ for conversations about sex and bilingual swearing. Set immediately following the comic Sophomore Year #11 - Junior Show

It was somewhere between the first and the third glass of free champagne that Lardo’s precarious house of cards began to topple.

“I got in to Harvard.”

Shitty seemed surprised. Lardo realised suddenly that she wasn’t. Her ears began to ring. She needed air. She bolted for the door as the team dogpiled Shitty. It was all she could do to keep from leaking tears before she hit the alley. She had a reputation to maintain, despite everything.

She knew she shouldn’t have picked a friend. Especially not her best friend. She should have just picked a lax boy and hate-fucked him like a sane human being.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. _“Like most things related to Shitty do”_ she reflected, ruefully. A breezy, physical relationship based purely on their mutual need for stress relief and their conveniently-close proximity. No threat to their friendship whatsoever, just some completely platonic, painfully brilliant sex.

And now she had fled her own open house, snivelling like a fool over a boy, just like she’d sworn to never do again. She was better then this. She was _Lardo_.

Except maybe tonight she wasn’t. Maybe tonight, she was Larissa, and maybe her heart was breaking all over again.

***

The last time someone had called her Larissa was on exchange, and it was a lanky German boy with ice blond hair. He seriously could have been a tam frosh at that insane school in Canada where they threw Frogs into a greased pit, and cuddling was definitely not a comfy experience. In the grand scheme of things, though, it hadn’t mattered; they never spent that much time cuddling. It had been refreshing, being Larissa. Being responsible for her and only her. She could be as tough or tender as she pleased, and no one here would care about which pieces of herself she chose to keep hidden or reveal. She’d been warned by her classmates not to waste such an opportunity by tying herself to one screw, but Friedrich didn’t seem like an open-relationships kind of guy and the idea of hooking up with other people when he clearly thought they were exclusive bothered her. She’d almost convinced herself she was leaving Kenya with a boyfriend, and then he took her out to an expensive Italian place and ruined it all over coffee.

“Look, you go back to America. I go back to Berlin. Skype is free, _ja_ , but plane tickets, they are not.”

She’d cut her hair the next day. Suddenly, she hadn’t wanted to be Larissa anymore.

Lardo had decided on the plane home that junior year was going to be feelings-free. She couldn’t risk sentiment clouding her career decisions; there’d be enough trouble finding paying summer jobs this year. No city would be too far, no internship too small. It was a great plan except that Lardo was human, and she enjoyed sex. She wasn’t into keeping track of numerical data beyond team fines and coach bus prices, but she was vaguely aware she’d slept with more people than “ladies” were meant to, and of more gender identities then the binary would suggest existed. She also knew she was good, and she didn’t see any reason to pretend otherwise. It had put more than one frat boy off, which she took as a gift; they couldn’t have broadcast, “I suck in bed and am insecure about that fact,” any louder if they’d used loudspeakers. Hook-up culture suited Lardo just fine, and if Larissa wondered every so often if stability might have been more important then excitement, well, so be it.

***

The air was colder then she’d expected, and the rough edges of the metal stairs she’d sat on were biting into her calves. She could have convinced herself she wasn’t really crying if the corners of her eyes were the warmest parts of her body right now.

Had this been Shitty’s idea or hers? It hadn’t exactly been a conversation; one minute she’d been spray painting foamboard while Shitty stress-ate croissants, and the next she was lying breathless on a too-small mattress and wishing she’d washed her sheets recently. There was a rant in between about pressure cookers and the value of academia, but whether it had been her rant or his no longer seemed relevant.

Definitions seemed irrelevant back then, so they never used any. Shitty was her best friend. Isn’t friendship about helping each other out in jams? Besides, it was clear from his performance that he’d done this many times before. Of course he’d expected this to be free of feelings. This was Shitty, the bro-est of bros. She was a fool for letting any of this happen, and she was a fool for expecting anything to come out of it.

She didn’t want to go back inside. She’d already been graded, anyways. She had no obligation to stay, beyond it being rude to disappear on her friends like this.

“They’ll get over it,” she muttered, as she wandered into the night.


	2. American English

This had been his idea, and he felt sick about it.

The second he saw the acceptance notice, he knew he was toast. There was no way things could stay the way they were, if he took the offer and moved away. And how could he not take the offer? It was HARVARD. Shitty wasn’t 100% sold on law school, but it’s not like he had a better plan and he’d be damned if he was going to be the first person in the Knight family to turn down an Ivy League acceptance.

He remembered it so clearly. Bitty had outdone himself with the croissants this time, but no amount of fluffy pastry seemed to make the vice-grip in his chest relax. He’d felt like he was living in a pressure cooker, and he’d said as much. That set Lardo right off.

“I don’t get what the point is. I pay ungodly sums of money to have some washed-up fuckwit criticise me on a daily basis, and somehow they’re the ultimate authority on whether I’ll get a job? I don’t need a degree to make art. No one’s going to bust into my house and seize my supplies just because I don’t have a glorified scrap of paper saying I’m qualified to use them. Why are we _doing this_ to ourselves?”

She looked so tired, and so broken, and suddenly nothing mattered anymore besides making that scowl go away. Lardo was the most important thing in his universe, and she had been for a long time; long enough for some some of the team to notice. The bravest of them even chirped him for it.

Shitty was perfectly aware that he was a conundrum to everyone he met. A jock doing a genders major? A rich kid with massive flow? A Kegster pong champ who was still a virgin? These were not statements that computed for most people, and he handled it by not talking about it unless they asked first. The people who needed to know everything already did.

Well, maybe not everything.

Had they said anything before he’d seized her arms and kissed her? Before they tumbled onto her mattress? No, _of course_ not. That would have been rational, and they were both well past rational. Stress had done them both in harder than any kegster could. He’d spent the first half of the encounter dreading his impending failure and Lardo’s subsequent teasing, and the second half freaking out over what had just happened and how he’d managed to (inadvertently) fool her into thinking he’d done this before. After that, it seemed to be assumed they’d act like this never happened until she wanted sex again, and then they’d go back to pretending immediately after. Repeat ad infinitum. He wasn’t okay with it, not really. But she was happier when she was getting some and if he wanted more, well, he just had to live with that. Maybe it was his penance for not telling her he was a virgin.

Maybe he’d just wanted her to ask.

None of that mattered now. He tried his best to pull it together and smile as the boys leapt onto him, back pats and high-fives raining down. He lasted a full hour before Jack, sober as always, quietly tugged him aside under the guise of tracking down another glass of wine. Shitty waited till they were out of earshot before calling him on it.

“Another glass of wine? Jack, we both know you don’t drink.”

“No, but you do.”

Shitty didn’t have a response for this. He was shocked that Jack had picked up on his distress. Maybe he didn’t give his best friend enough credit.

“And anyway, I do drink, sometimes. We’re getting off topic. Shitty, what the fuck is going on?”

Ahhh. There was the Jack he knew.

“Nothing, bro. Just a little tired. Bit of a shock, this,” he said, gesturing at his phone, the damning email still visible.

“It’s before midnight. _Osti de marde_.”

Oh, we were cursing in French now. Great. He wasn’t getting out of this one without telling Zimmermann the truth.

“Look, Jack, I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Tough,” Jack said, uncompromisingly, as he handed Shitty another glass of champagne. Shitty downed it like a shot and grabbed Jack’s arm roughly.

“ _Bâtard_ , Shitts, that hur-”

“Shut the fuck up, Zimmermann. We’re going outside.”

***

Outside was cold. _Really_ cold. He wondered whether Lardo would be mad about him leaving without saying goodbye. There was no way he was going back in there; his face couldn’t do another second of smiling. He strode angrily into the alley beside the gallery and sagged against the steps of the fire escape. He dropped his head to his lap and ran frantic hands through his hair, as if the flow contained the answer to this mess.

“We’re outside. _Tort à Dieu_ , Knight, what the fuck is wrong? You got into Harvard.”

“I’m fucking Lardo.” Shitty looked up at Jack in despair.

“Look, man, English may be my second language but I’m pretty sure in America that sentence parses out to a good thing.”

Shitty began to cry.

“ _Akay, mon frère_. Start at the beginning.” Jack sat down next to him and threw an arm around his shoulder. This was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to the best of my ability to make the Joual coherent but if there are any French Canadians in the audience who have issues please feel free to raise them!


	3. Listen

“And then when I got the acceptance letter and realized I’ll be moving… god, Jack. There’s no way this can work long distance. She’ll find someone else who’s not 45 minutes away and … oh god, what have I done?” Shitty began to sob again. There were no tears this time, just heaving shudders.

“Shitty. I need you to calm down a notch and explain a little more. And then we can work from there.” Jack’s voice was soothing, almost therapeutic. “Why haven’t you told Lardo you’re in love with her?”

“I… because she’d stop fucking me if she knew,” Shitty answered, ashamed. “It’s Lardo. You know she doesn’t do feelings, bro.”

“Well. That wasn’t quite the best idea.”

“Jack. Please. What the fuck do I do?” he moaned helplessly.

“If this was any other problem, what would you do?”

“Talk to Lardo.” Shitty pushed his fringe out of his eyes and looked up at Jack.

“No. Jack. No. You’re not serious.”

“Shitty Knight. What’s the worst thing that could happen if you talk to her?”

“She stops sleeping with me and never speaks to me again.”

“And if you _don’t_ talk to her?”

“She stops talking to me and- Jesus fuck, you’re right.”

“It happens.”

“Okay. Okay. I go and I talk to Lardo. I talk to Lardo and…?”

“And you know where you stand.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to go home now?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you need me to walk with you?” Jack sounded sincere.

“Yeah.”

***

They were halfway home and passing a playground when Shitty noticed a familiar figure slumped on the swing set. He sped up a little, but Jack caught his arm.

“Shitty.” Jack’s tone was kind, but firm. Shitty exhaled slowly.

“Fine.”

“Do you-”

“No. Don’t wait up.” Shitty squared his shoulders. Jack gave him a hard look, then slapped him on the shoulder and strode away. Shitty almost had to remind himself to breathe as he turned and walked slowly towards the swing set. Lardo didn’t look up when he reached her, so he sat down heavily on the empty swing next to her, kicking at the ground softly.

“Hey.” His voice was rough. She still didn’t look up.

“Look. Lardo. I need to talk.”

“Shitty-”

“No. I need… I just need you to listen. Please.”

She looked up at this. After a long moment, she bit her lip and nodded.

“Lardo, this isn’t fair to you. I haven’t been honest, and I should have been, and I’m sorry. I messed up. I just… I didn’t want to fuck this up.”

“Shitty, I-”

“No, wait, I’m not done. Lardo… Lardo, I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and I should have told you. I… I just… I’m gonna go home now.” He couldn’t do this. He needed sleep, or a beer, or both. He started to stand up, but Lardo’s hand shot out and pulled him back down.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was finally looking at him, and he would rather take on an entire team by himself without a helmet then answer that question.

“I wasn’t thinking. I just knew you weren’t okay and I wanted to make you happy, and I thought kissing you would do that. I haven’t thought about anything else since then. I’m sorry.”

“We don’t control the way we feel, bro.”

“But I knew. I knew going into this that you don’t do feelings. It’s not fair of me to expect anything from you. Fuck, Lardo, I’m sorry. I should have just told you I was a virgin.” He braced himself for the explosion.

“Fuck you.” She was angry now. Shitty figured he deserved nothing less.

“Fuck you. Who the fuck do you think you are, to come here and make me think that you love me and then tell me you should have lied to me? Like what the fuck am I supposed to think about that? You should have told me you were a virgin? The fuck kind of bullshit lie would that have been? Jesus Christ, Shitty, how stupid do you think I am? If you don’t want to keep having sex just say that.” Her eyes were aflame.

“That’s not… I wasn’t… Lardo. There’s never been anyone else.” He stared at his shoes like they were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.

“You’re… _you’re serious_. You’re actually serious.”

“I thought you’d figure it out from how awful I was, and then it turned out I’m actually good at it and I just didn’t know how to bring it up after that.”

Lardo was silent for a long moment. She was having trouble processing all this. To be honest, she was having trouble processing anything. She suddenly felt dizzy. The quiet was broken only by small scuffling noises as Shitty continued kicking the ground, and the creaking of the swing’s chains as Lardo shivered against them. Shitty reached out and took her hand in his.

“Shit, Lards. You’re freezing.” He launched himself from the swing to kneel in front of her, wrapping his blazer around her shoulders.

“I’m fine. It’s fine. I’m… cold. I’m really cold. I’m not sure I can feel my arms, actually.”

“How long have you been outside for?”

“An hour, I think. I… I left when you got your acceptance. I needed air.” Shitty was rubbing her hands now. He was so _warm_.

“I shouldn’t have said anything. It was your night.” He looked so ashamed. She slumped forward, putting her head on her knees in an effort to stop the world from spinning.

“No, it was cool bro. The grader had left already. I told you to check your phone. S’cool. Swasome.” Lardo was slurring a little now, which didn’t make sense. She’d had three glasses of champagne ages ago. There was no way she could be drunk. She was suddenly aware of how fast her heart was beating. She still couldn’t feel her arms, and her hands tingled where Shitty rubbed them.

“God, Shitty, we’ve been so stupid.” She looked up at him, but his hair seemed to be moving on its own and she had to put her head down again quickly.

“Lards, are you drunk right now?” Shitty moved his hands to her face and gently tilted her chin up, trying to get a good look at her eyes to judge her focus level.

“No, fuckwit. I’m hypo… hypother… hypothermic.” Team manager meant being designated first aider for roadies, and Lardo was almost annoyed with herself that it had taken her this long to string together her numb arms, dizziness, slurring, and heart-racing into text-book hypothermia.

“Fuck. Jesus. Okay.” On the one hand, going to the Haus meant Jack was there to help if he couldn’t handle things. On the other, the rest of the boys could be home, and he really didn’t need them involved tonight. Then again, Lardo’s house was 30 minutes away, and the Haus was eight. That settled it. He tugged his tie off, shoved it in his pocket, then swooped Lardo up into his arms like you’d carry a puppy, or a small child.

“Shitty, I can walk by my-” said Lardo, breaking off abruptly when she realised just how warm Shitty’s chest was. She yawned, and her eyes started to close.

“No no no no no. _Lardo_. Stay awake.”

“S’fine. Just walk fast, bro” she murmured, drifting into the black.

Shitty groaned and began to run.


	4. Feel

He’d told Jack not to wait up, but he’d suspected Jack wouldn’t listen. Sure enough, Jack was sitting on the couch, cleaning his lens collection as Shitty burst ungracefully through the door.

“Jack, I need all the blankets off my bed. Now.”

Jack carefully swept the lenses back into their cases in the blink of an eye, and wordlessly bolted upstairs. Shitty deposited Lardo on the couch and began rubbing her blotchy arms. Jack was back, with a pile of blankets _definitely_ containing more than just his own. Shitty raised an eyebrow.

“I brought mine and I grabbed the one off Bittle’s bed. He worships Lardo, I figured he wouldn’t mind.” Shitty began wrapping Lardo in blankets while Jack disappeared into the kitchen. He reappeared a few minutes later with two damp facecloths and three mugs of hot chocolate.

“For her arms. She’s got some frostbite. Needs wet heat. Here, this one’s yours. I put rum in it” He handed Shitty a mug. Shitty took a swig and gently placed the warm facecloths onto Lardo’s arms.

“Zimmermann, where did you-”

“Canada’s fucking cold, bro.” Jack put a hand on Shitty’s shoulder. They sipped their mugs in silence for a long moment.

“So did you…”

“Yeah.”

“How’d she take it?”

“I dunno. She got really mad at first, thought I was lying. And then she believed me but she got all… slow. I thought she was drunk at first.”

“You did good, Knight.” Jack squeezed his shoulder, then drained his mug. Lardo was beginning to stir.

“I’m going to bed. Wake me up if she gets worse or if you need me.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” Jack nodded and disappeared upstairs.

Lardo opened her eyes slowly. She wriggled a bit and looked up at Shitty, confused.

“Why… am I… wet?” she mumbled.

“Zimmermann’s idea. Old Canadian remedy for frostbite.” She nodded at this and looked down at her dress.

“I think I need to change.”

“Sure. Cool. Great.” Shitty looked over at the coffee table, noticing for the first time a pile of clothes clearly left by Jack. His Samwell hoodie, his Genders sweatpants, and a Lardo-sized Beyoncé tank top clearly commandeered from Bitty’s closet. He grabbed the clothes and handed them to her, looking away.

“K, cool, I’m decent again. How long do I have to leave these on, anyways?” She’d left the sweater off and put the compresses back on her bare arms. The rationale behind the tank top now became clear to Shitty.

“Uh, probably till the white patches are gone.” He sat down next to her, arranging the blankets around her shoulders.

“Cool.”

Lardo drank the remaining mug of hot chocolate. They sat in silence for a quarter of an hour.

“K, I think I’m good,” she said at last, peeling off the now-lukewarm compresses and flinging them onto the coffee table. She pulled on his hoodie and took several deep, slow breaths.

“Congrats. On Harvard. Fucking _Harvard_. You’re brilliant, Shitty. You deserve this.” She meant it. Whatever it meant for her, for _this_ (whatever _this_ was), he was still her best friend, and he deserved the best.

“Lardo, I meant what I said earlier. And I need to know… I need to know what this is to you. Because if we’re just bros, that’s fine. But I can’t keep sleeping with you and pretending it doesn’t fucking mean anything to me. It hurts too much.” He leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. Whatever happened next was entirely up to her. He just hoped she’d be gentle.

“I thought you wanted this to be no-strings,” she said after a long pause. Shitty let out a strangled noise halfway between laughter and a sob. “That first time… when you didn’t say anything after. I thought you’d done this before. I thought you didn’t want me to get attached.” She reached over and took his hand. If she remembered what he’d said on the swings correctly, this next bit was going to hurt.

“The last time I… the last time I thought I loved someone, it was on exchange. His name was Friedrich, and he dumped me the last week we were in Kenya because he didn’t want to do long-distance. After that I decided I was done with feelings until I graduated. Too much work.” Shitty’s eyes were still closed, but she saw him wince as her words landed.

“Did you and Friedrich…?”

“Fuck? Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Shitty. It wasn’t-”

“It’s okay. We’re cool. Seriously, it’s all good. Are you okay to sleep on the couch, or do you want me to grab you a jacket and walk you home?” His heart felt like it was ripping itself into shreds. He tried to stand up, but she pulled him back down.

“Shitty. Listen. It wasn’t as good as when I was with you.”

“Lardo, you don’t have to-”

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me! I said I decided I was done with feelings. I didn’t say I succeeded. We don’t control how we feel.”

“And you… feel? Feelings?” He’d opened his eyes now, and he stared into hers, searching. She bit her lip.

“Feelings… for me?” She nodded, a small trickle leaking out her left eye. He wiped it away with his thumb, the callouses rough against her skin. She collapsed into him and he kissed the top of her head softly.

“Larissa Duan. Will you be my long-distance girlfriend?”

Her kiss said everything he needed to hear.

***

If any of the boys noticed Lardo and Shitty huddled on the couch as they stumbled in the door that night, they kept their trap shut about it. Everyone except Eric Bittle, chatterbox supreme, who wandered into the kitchen at 6:00am to start a batch of breakfast biscuits.

“Hey, Bitty?” Lardo said, dumping coffee into the machine.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m wearing your tank top.”

“Oh. That’s fine. Gracious, it’s not like any of Shitty’s would fit you.” Bitty measured ingredients without even looking at the recipe. “You must have slept here last night. It’s much closer to the gallery. That was a great show last night Lardo. Amazing.” He began mixing everything together, little puffs of flour bursting up from the bowl every so often. “Were you okay last night? I saw you leave but I wasn’t sure it was my place to follow you. Is that my blanket?” Bitty looked across the room at the couch, confused.

“Maybe? I’m not 100% sure on everything that happened last night. I needed a walk but I ended up giving myself hypothermia and I think Jack was the one who grabbed all the blankets and stuff.”

Bitty gently kneaded the dough and asked, “Did he make you put wet facecloths on your frostbite?”

“Yeah, Shitty said it’s an Old-”

“Old Canadian remedy,” he finished, giggling. “He made me do it after shinny, said my face would freeze that way if I didn’t.”

“Classic Zimmermann.” The coffee was ready now. She sat down, pouring them both a cup while Bitty cut out the biscuits and laid them out on a baking sheet.

“So, you and Shitty. Are you two… goodness knows I don’t want to pry, but are you two okay?” Row after row of perfectly neat circles filled the sheet. It was almost magical to watch. “Only you seemed really upset when he told us he got into Harvard, and that’s not a usual reaction, but then I remembered that means he’s moving and of course you’d be sad that he was going-” Lardo finally caught Bitty’s eyes.

“Bits, breathe. Shitty and I… let’s just say that last night we weren’t okay.”

“And this morning?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Larissa Duan, I swear to Heaven, if that boy does anything to hurt you, he’ll have me to answer to.” Bittle had his serious face on now, and coupled with the flour-caked pyjamas and the hands-on-hips he looked utterly ridiculous. She couldn’t stop herself from bursting out in laughter.

“I’m serious!” he insisted, indignant.

“No, it’s just I think-” another wave of laughter overtook her, before she managed to gasp out, “Jack probably said the same thing to Shitty about me!”

“Gracious! The people on this team need to learn to use their words. _To each other_. I’m not sure my poor heart can take much more of this drama,” Bitty said, also beginning to laugh.

“I think we learned our lesson, Bitts. Call me when the biscuits are cooked, k? I’m gonna take a shower.” She headed for the staircase, then paused in the kitchen doorway and looked back at him.

“Hey, Bitty?”

“Yes?”

“Is it okay if this stays between the four of us for now?”

“My lips are sealed.”

***

Months later, Lardo could have looked back at that morning in the kitchen and called Bitty an utter hypocrite, given his own completely inability to use words concerning a certain team captain. She never did though. Words were hard, even for arts majors. Even for Harvard Law students.

Instead, Larissa looked back at that morning and then went shopping for an anniversary craft beer for her long-distance boyfriend. They’d probably reached that point.

**Fin**


End file.
